Archive for the 'shemp' Category

Following on from the previous article on shemp development (see Uncle Bear for definition and origin of shemp), I mused on the possibility of doing this by random generator based on a lifepath system. By freakish coincidence I was looking into fortune-telling using playing cards and then I thought of the oracles at Abulafia…

The result is an open-source, system-free way to add flair to your baseline shemp. Use to taste – there are multiple options for the system depending on inclination and there are multiple systems of card divination courtesy of Google to use if this method isn’t to your taste. Without further ado, The Oracle of Shemp.

(Token Disclaimer: Fame & Fortune discourage using this as a divination tool even if there were cartomancers using this in 17th century courts. No challenge to any kind of copyright intended – what do you think I’m crazy? C’thulhu fthagn! ia! ia!Must be this tall to ride. )

Berin hints at levels of Eternal Champion-style recursion when he suggests bringing story arcs into the back story for the shemp when they move from system to system. If the bodyguard in one story loses their ward, perhaps in another story when they are used as a gruff war veteran, they have a facial scar and lost a friend in a fierce firefight. You can extend these stock characters to have their own mythology.

So, can this process be automated in a system-free manner?

I say “…and why not?” Sci-fi games like Cyberpunk 2020 and Traveller use a lifepath method of providing characters with skills and backstory. So why not use a system-free method to give a character additional depth without intensive amounts of scripting or even a hugely detailed background. As you’ll only really need to know maybe three or four major things… so maybe this could become some kind of random generator. Have to write this one out I think.

Care would have to be taken to avoid obvious transplanting or cliché with the generator; so a visit to TV Tropes may be in order to prevent this from sinking into stock (even though that’s what we’re after) so we need to finesse some things into the mix. Is this a viable concept?